The state budget, which legislators passed Friday, requests that tenured faculty who teach less than 15 hours take on more courses to deal with the UNC system's projected enrollment growth. Enrollment grew by more than 7,000 students this year.
State fiscal analysts estimate that having tenured professors who already work in the UNC system teach more classes could save $3 million -- primarily at UNC-CH and N.C. State University.
The new policy is one of many legislative changes made to the UNC-CH budget to create additional funding for the state.
UNC-CH Provost Robert Shelton said it is unclear how the University will go about implementing the new provision.
Shelton also said that although UNC-CH professors only teach approximately 10.6 credit hours a year, they complete about five hours of lab instruction or face time.
"The story shouldn't be that professors aren't teaching enough," he said. "It should be that our students are getting a lot more one-on-one time with our professors."
UNC-CH journalism Professor Chuck Stone said the new policy could make it more difficult for the University to recruit faculty.
"I wouldn't have come here if I had to teach three courses," Stone said. "You go where you get the best deal. If Virginia or Michigan require that you only teach two courses and we require three, guess where you go?"
James Jorgenson, chairman of UNC-CH's chemistry department, said that even though he was unfamiliar with the new provision in the state budget, he thought it was entirely possible that the state's requirement will adversely affect faculty recruitment for his department.
